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Top News - February - 2004
Published February 16, 2004
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AIDS still a threat to Aboriginal community
Access to services a problem for disabled people
Plans unveiled for petroleum sector training centreThis is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the February 2004 issue of Saskatchewan Sage. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sage, then you have missed out on a lot.
AIDS still a threat to Aboriginal community
Stephen LaRose, Sage Writer, Regina
Don't get complacent.
That's the message one of Canada's leaders in the fight against AIDS brought to a Regina conference on Jan. 29.
Dr. Jay Wortman delivered the keynote address to the Epidemics in Our Communities conference hosted by the All Nations Hope AIDS Network and AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan.
Wortman, who has devoted his working life to combating the spread of the disease, said the number of full-blown AIDS cases among Aboriginal people has leveled off in recent years. That doesn't mean that the Aboriginal or health care communities can be less vigilant or cut back their efforts to promote ways to stop the spread of the disease, he said.
"People are clearly aware of the HIV threat," said Wortman. "But I'm not sure how much that translates into preventing the disease amongst people who are really high risk. I think more needs to be done."
AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is an infection in the body due to the presence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that severely damages the body's immune system.
A person infected with HIV can live a long time before contracting diseases that may eventually kill them. When an HIV-infected person's case develops into full-blown AIDS, the person's body can no longer resist infection.
HIV is not spread through casual contact, such as sharing clothing, shaking hands or being in the same room as an infected person. It's primarily spread through the transmission of bodily fluids-transfusions of infected blood, sharing unclean needles, and unprotected sex.
Early prevention programs have caused the number of reported HIV cases to be leveled off in recent years. And the news is just as optimistic for those who have been infected with HIV. Thanks to new retroviral drugs, it takes longer for those who are infected with HIV to develop full-blown AIDS.
However, the success of these drugs also means a that a generation of young Canadian-Aboriginal as well as non-Aboriginal-don't remember people dying from the disease, he said.
Without maintaining and increasing programs to combat HIV's spread, many First Nations communities may return to the days of 15 years ago when many were unfamiliar with the disease, he added.
"There was a time when there was very low awareness of HIV in the Aboriginal community. There weren't too many examples of it. People weren't thinking about it," Wortman said. "The challenge at that time was to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS, and get people to understand that it is a threat."
Wortman has been doing just that throughout his medical career. In the late 1980s, the young Métis doctor befriended Dr. Peter Jepson-Young, a fellow doctor who had contracted HIV. The two wanted to educate the public about preventing the spread of the virus. The result was a two-year series of programs on CBC Vancouver, The Dr. Peter Diaries, in which Jepson-Young would talk about how the virus would eventually kill him, and how others could prevent the spread of HIV. Jepson-Young died in November 1992.
Jay Wortman has continued his work to combat the spread of HIV. He developed a teaching module for family doctors that's now used throughout the Canadian medical system. He's also traveled the world to bring the same message to Indigenous peoples in many countries.
Wortman has also developed the first HIV prevention program specifically targeted at Aboriginal people. He received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award last year in recognition of his medical service to Canada's Indigenous people.
In his speech, he acknowledged that many Aboriginal people live below the poverty line and in sub-standard housing, and that people who live in such conditions find it difficult to take the necessary precautions against HIV.
"You have to make sure people know what should and shouldn't be done," he said. "We also have to address underlying conditions such as poverty, socio-economics and disruptive communities."
If those underlying issues can be dealt with, Canada's Aboriginal communities will also be in a better shape to fight other epidemics, such as pandemic influenza and diabetes, he concluded.
Access to services a problem for disabled people
Cheryl Petten, Sage Writer, ReginaAboriginal people with disabilities are having problems finding and receiving the services they are entitled to, states a report released in January by the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy (SIIP).
The report, Aboriginal People with Disabilities: A Vacuum in Public Policy, contains the results of a two-year study on the issues faced in Canada by Aboriginal people with disabilities. The study involved gathering information from Aboriginal people with disabilities and from professionals responsible for providing services to people with disabilities, as well as a review of previous research on the subject. Two First Nations women with disabilities were part of the research team.
Dr. Doug Durst, a senior policy fellow with the SIIP and a professor of social work at the University of Regina, was one of the authors of the report.
Durst said the idea of undertaking the research project grew out of the lack of research that has been done looking at Aboriginal people with disabilities.
"I noticed that there was quite a bit of research on Aboriginal people, and there was quite a bit of research on people with disabilities. But there was very, very little that actually brings the two topics together and the issues together," Durst said.
The number of Aboriginal people with disabilities is more than twice the rate of the Canadian population as a whole, the report points out, yet the level of services provided to Aboriginal people continues to lag behind those offered to their non-Aboriginal counterparts.
One of the main factors keeping Aboriginal people with disabilities from receiving the supports and services they need is that these people often fall into a jurisdictional limbo, Durst explained.
Aboriginal people with disabilities living in First Nations communities are often forced to leave their communities and move to larger centres in order to access the services they need, he said. But in order to get funding for the services, the person will often have to apply to their band for that funding.
"The band perspective is if a person has a disability and doesn't live in the band ... they're not a priority," Durst said. "Certain kinds of programs and services for maybe somebody who hasn't lived on reserve for many, many years, they don't feel well-connected to them and obligated to follow through."
The issue is further complicated by the confusion over which level of government is responsible for providing services, Durst said. While provision of these services for the general population is mainly a provincial responsibility, providing services for Aboriginal people with disabilities is a federal obligation. This creates what the report refers to as a "ping-pong" treatment of people seeking services.
"Provincial government programs are reluctant to become involved and refer these patients to the federal agency: Medical Services refers to the band government. The band administrators hold an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude and refer to provincial programs," the report states.
Another problem is that, while service providers and professionals who took part in the study said any and all groups were welcome to access their services, including Aboriginal people with disabilities, very few attempts were made to include Aboriginal people in the provision of those services, Durst said.
"If seven, eight per cent of the population of the city is of Aboriginal background, and since Aboriginal people have disabilities at twice the national average, you would think that 14 to 16 per cent of their clients should be Aboriginal. But they're not," he said.
"The thing is, because of the complexity of the needs, I don't think you can really set up a parallel Aboriginal health care system ... so we have to work with some of these groups and put pressure on them, encourage them, increase their awareness. And that's what this report is, is to increase these people's awareness and sensitivity to these issues.
The report recommends that an intergovernmental review team be created to find solutions to jurisdictional problems. The team would have representation from federal and provincial level organizations, Aboriginal people with disabilities and community-based professionals who are providing the services.
It also suggests that organizations mandated to provide services to Aboriginal people with disabilities take steps to increase the number of Aboriginal people accessing the services by examining their policies and programs to identify any discriminatory practices, and by involving more Aboriginal people in service provision.
The report also recommends each province create an ombudsman or advocacy office for Aboriginal people with disabilities to help ensure they receive the services and supports to which they are entitled.
While all these recommendations will help address the problem, Doug Durst said, the people needing the services will have to advocate on their own behalf.
"In the non-Aboriginal community, people with disabilities have become more and more vocal. They're standing up, they're getting services, they're demanding things. And I think we're going to see that over the next decades among Aboriginal people with disabilities. They're going to get more vocal, and then you'll start to see changes."
Plans unveiled for petroleum sector training centre
Pamela Sexsmith, Sage Writer, Thunderchild First Nation
Aboriginal people from across western Canada interested in a career in the oil and gas industry will soon be able to get the training they need at the new Thunderchild Petroleum Institute of Technology.
The institute, a partnership between Thunderchild First Nation and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) will provide technical training programs specifically geared to the petroleum industry, offered in a culturally supportive setting. The institute is slated to open this coming spring.
The school will offer practical training with accredited certification to help meet the demand for skilled petroleum sector workers. Estimates put the number of new jobs in the oil and gas sector that will be created in the area over the next five years at as high as 22,000.
The new petroleum institute initiative is breathing life into what has been called "a large white elephant," the former All Nations Institute of Technology (ANIT), built at great expense on Thunderchild more than 20 years ago and which stopped operating soon after it opened due to cuts in government funding.
Winston Weekusk, the current Thunderchild chief, was one of the major players in getting ANIT off the ground, helping to secure federal funding for the institute through Employment and Immigration Canada. Unfortunately, that funding dried up two years later, when the department changed its policy and began providing training funding directly to corporations rather than post-secondary institues, band consultant Marv Hendrickson explained.
" The ANIT, after being completely built and fully equipped, was left isolated without the commitment of the federal government on an ongoing basis and virtually never used," said Hendrickson.
"Chief Weekusk has pursued it, whipped this horse for 25 years. His intention is to get it back up and running in a practical sense, to serve the individual, the needs of the First Nation and be realistic in terms of the petroleum industry where the jobs are. The chief has always had a focus on full employment and economic self-sufficiency. When you start identifying a couple of hundred jobs on reserve, you are going a long way towards personal and family self sufficiency," said Hendrickson.
SAIT officials will mentor and train Thunderchild managers and use programs and courses accredited by SAIT and the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT) and which meet industry standards and conform with operating agreements with the Saskatchewan and Alberta apprentice boards.
"We want to offer a well-rounded education, culturally based, in new facilities on a reserve setting. Following through with the petroleum institute initiative shows that in the long run we are going to have successful students," said Marvin Jimmy, Thunderchild's director of education.
"We see the whole infrastructure, kindergarten to 12, followed by the Thunderchild Forum which is our first and second year arts and science programs in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan, proving that we are able to give our students more programming and support on the First Nation. The idea is not to keep our students from having off-reserve experiences," Jimmy explained, but to increase the number of students from the First Nation who successfully complete their studies.
Over the past three years, he said, 80 per cent of students attending the Thunderchild Forum have completed their studies, compard to a 40 per cent success rate for students attending the College of Arts and Sciences at the U of S.
"I know that what we are doing is important and substantial in helping create successful individuals," said Jimmy.
The band council has allocated $5.3 million from the First Nation's recent specific land claim settlement to an Enhancement for Education trust fund designed to promote education, training and employment for band members.
The First Nation, which is also an oil and gas producer with significant petroleum reserves, has also entered into partnerships with 11 oil and gas companies. Those companies have also invested in the new petroleum institute with start-up grants, employment development, and by providing industry input into course content.